Raise Your Hand If You Like Drop Ceilings

Drop ceilings. The bane of my first homes existence. We had it in our bathroom and also in our kitchen. Well, after cooking under fluorescent lights for too many nights I finally decided to rip it down. I just couldn’t take it. This actually dates back to last fall (2011 as well, but before I can show you all what’s been happening as of late, I need to catch you up on the project – my bad for not blogging as I went)

Haha, don’t judge the hanging light fixture. It was secure …enough.

So I ripped down the drop ceiling and found the lovely mustard yellow plaster. Nothing a little ceiling paint couldn’t fix for a temporary solution. We ended up purchasing a track light from Ikea – the Barometer for $50. It was at that point when I realized how much I hate fluorescent lights. The new light made a world of a difference. Not that you’ll ever be able to tell in photos, but it just felt better to be in there.

From that point, I lived with the kitchen for a while. Though it didn’t last long. A few months later, I ripped out the upper cabinets. (Ryan, if you’ve learned anything from these posts – you should hide the hammers). But I couldn’t be more happy that I did!

We picked up this shelving unit from Target with gift card we had been holding on to (for whatever reason, I collect them. It’s an issue. And it drives my friend Colleen nuts. Haha)

I decided that since we had such nice new dishes from our wedding (from Crate and Barrel) that I’d much rather show them on a shelf in the dining room than keep them in our dingy upper cabinets.

And thus, the removal process began. I don’t think I ever really got a good shot of that corner cabinet…but it was shallow and awkward and weird. The whole fact that we didn’t have proper corner cabinets (not that anything in our kitchen was proper or standard to begin with) made me a little worried that there was a reason why. But first, hammer and cabinet removal..

BOOM!!!! THERE IT IS! DO YOU SEE THAT!?!?!?!

Once I ripped down the exhaust hood the wiring that was plastered into the wall peeled back and revealed something I could only wish dream for. Do you see that slice of red? The slice of goodness that could only mean one thing: brick.

A closer look at my new discovery. Who woulda guessed that somewhere along the line there would be faux brick – on top of plaster – on top of real brick. Blows my mind. It’s sad to say but the cabinets came down insanely easy. Too easy. Made me feel much better about taking my new dishes out of them, I mean who knows how long they would have stayed up. Shoddily made, shoddily installed. I guess they go hand in hand.

Ah so much better! I didn’t end up removing the soffit above the sink for a while because there was a light installed (via random ceiling outlet if you can believe it) and all the wiring was knob and tube > wasn’t ready to mess with that just yet. So when I started this mini project I had every intention of removing the cabinets and painting the wall behind them to make it temporarily pretty. But now that I found the brick that just meant I had to take down the rest of the plaster to reveal all the pretty. Not to mention at the time I was planning a surprise 50th for my parents that we were hosting at our home in just a week. So that plaster wall came down fast. But that’s for my next post.

To wrap up, let’s break down what this mini demo project revealed:

1. there was no purpose for the drop ceiling. the lowering of the ceiling made me think there was maybe some kind of new piping or electrical that was running through the ceiling – but this was not the case – aka – we get to keep it nice and high for our remodel.

2. BRICK WALL! this requires some design adjusting – if you notice our Design 3 we had lots of cabinets and a tall fridge on this wall, which if we kept the design the way it was, most of the brick would be covered. Back to the drawing board.

3. Ok, I didn’t get pictures of it, but in the corner is actually piping. Great. No corner cabinet and a roadblock in the corner L shaped kitchen. Like our kitchen doesn’t have enough traffic patterns – now I have to design around pipes. Designers challenge. I accept.

Soon to come on the blog – removing plaster from brick & our final kitchen design! Then I can finally get you all caught up on what’s been happening these past few weeks!